


Follow Your Spirit (and upon this, charge)

by thescientist291



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Twitter Fic, but really just angst, john's voice in sherlock's head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-11 23:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10477026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescientist291/pseuds/thescientist291
Summary: "Sherlock didn't realise just how much he needed John Watson until he's placed in his first location, facing his first mission in untangling the web."Post-Reichenbach, pre-TEH. This is pretty angsty, guys. You were warned.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was subjecting my friend @JohnlockBitchhh to some emotional torture yesterday whilst writing a small kid!lock fic on Twitter and today decided to torture them more by writing this up. More people liked it than I anticipated (so more than 0, haha) and asked me to put it onto here, so here we go! Tidying it up a bit too, since I wrote the original one in one sitting.  
> Hope you all like it.

Sherlock didn't realise just how much he needed John Watson until he's placed in his first location, facing his first mission in untangling the web.

He's dropped off by one of Mycroft's many minions at a sagging flat, dingier than anything, cold and damp and dark.

The moment he misses John is when he discovers he badly wants a cup of tea, because it's then that the reality of everything hits him:

Everything is gone.

London is gone, Baker Street is gone, John Watson is...

He’s gone.

And even though Sherlock may have stood meters away during that graveside speech and silently promised to return, the truth is: he won't. The odds are just too high.

He may be a great man, but he’s no hero. He is very aware of this. He is one against a very complicated web. He's never been an assassin. He's never had to kill.

But he'll try, now. He will try for John.

By _god_ , forget Harry, England, and St. George; he will try for crime scenes and the damn quiver of London's beating heart and an ex-army doctor with a lovable temper and HOME, even if it means it takes him a lifetime to get back, because nothing, _nothing_ , is worth more than home.

He sets his bag down. The dust immediately clings to it, but for once, he doesn’t care to study it.

He looks about, taking in the termite-infested surroundings of his new home.

Wait, _no_ \- error - rerouting - not Home. Anything remotely like Home will not exist these next few years.

These abandoned, secret havens may be safe, but they will never include low fires and bad telly and blown-up experiments and forgotten tea. 

They…

They won't include a warm, unpredictable, irate yet adoring doctor. They won't include smiles that never fail to take him back by surprise, blankets that appear tucked around his arms magically.

They won't include John Watson.

Damn it, they won't even include his coat! What kind of a life will he live without his coat? He can't very well be Sherlock Holmes without it. What on earth is Mycroft asking him to do anyway?

I mean, really.

It's absolutely absurd.

Asking Sherlock Holmes to be himself and do what he does without a good coat ( _and a short friend_ )? Pfft.

"Nice save, fretting over your coat. One might have thought you were going soft."

 _John_.

Sherlock's locked knees nearly betray him as he spins around too quickly, searching, desperately, frantically, for the voice that happens out of thin air.

But it's all in vain. He sees only the empty hallway, hears only the creaking of the wood beneath him as he begins to shift and regain his bearings.

 _John's not coming,_ he berates himself. _John isn't here. You may never even see him again._

Before the onslaught of potential despair can threaten to bury him alive, a *ding* echoes through the flat.

Sherlock digs into his pocket as he pulls out his new phone, one of many to come, and switches the sound to vibrate before opening the text.

A spark of disappointment flashes through his mind for the briefest moment when he sees Mycroft's name (yes, he knows; _sentiment_ , but still)--

**To: P  
From: Q**

**Target 29110 is moving prematurely. Act now.**

**You will be on your own.**

Dread washes over him as he looks about the flat again, head beginning to spin.

It's too early. This wasn't supposed to happen for another two weeks.

He was supposed to have one night before doing anything. Tomorrow morning, infiltrate a facility.

Start small.

Unnoticeable but impacting.

Dip his toes in, if you will. Get used to this new life.

But this, this target is a kill mission. More than that, it’s complicated. He will have to go in deep and smoke them out.

He's not ready.

What he wouldn't give for a cup of tea right now-NO. Focus.

He closes his eyes.

Takes in a deep breath.

Lets it out, slowly.

His phone vibrates; he reads the text:

**The matches are in the bedside drawer.**

He moves, slowly. Rifles through the things (one of them a cigarette pack), feels the phantom presence of a certain illegal firearm. Retrieves the matches.

He goes.

_Seven Hours Later_

He's never bringing matches again.

Years later, when John tells Sherlock to "Turn over, love", he'll see pink, puckering, mangled scars dotting his back like a tortured night sky.

John will hesitate but then, press on, soldier that he is; reacting only by kissing and tracing every one. Sherlock will know exactly what he's doing but will stay quiet, knowing that finally, here is the moment he was always waiting for, without even knowing it.

But now, right now, in this moment - hands bound, hair yanked, match alight, back arching, cries of agony clogging up his throat - all he can hear is John's voice.

As he hears a new match striking a surface and flaring up, he begins to replay every moment he's ever known with John.

He starts it up in his mind, hits play at "Here, use mine" and listens, hears "That was... amazing" like it's his very first time.

And even when a barbed wire begins to scrape viciously across his blisters, John's voice only rings louder.

It's in this moment that Sherlock finally considers that maybe he isn't at a disadvantage.

Yes, he wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for that man he calls his friend ( _question mark?_ ), but he's also shaken by the immense strength John is somehow imparting to him now.

For every moment that Sherlock ever saved John from his nightmares, gave him a reason to live, John is returning to him tenfold right here, right now.

If Sherlock thought John was his conductor of light before, then what he must be now is a beacon. The sole light at the end of the tunnel.

For it's John's whispers in his ear as he lies bleeding on the cold stones that make him lift his eyes and notice the guard's heroin addiction. It's John's twinkle of confidence in his eyes that gives him the power to push through the pain and escape at the only opportunity.

It's John, always John.

He sneaks out of his cell and goes, noticing the faulty wires, alighting the place on fire, as was, of course, the plan all along.

He's never bringing matches again.

He walks away, the screams and cries and shouts seemingly echoing through his world.

He walks until he finally reaches home -

No, no, not Home.

He will never have Home until he sees John Watson again.

But until that day, the day he finally gets to go back to warmth and goodness and kindness and something people might call love - all the things he’s only just beginning to miss, he retreats into his mind; he builds John Watson up, cements him in his palace.

Visual memory may fade, but only if one chooses to neglect it.

He re-catalogues _everything_ : the navy blue eyes, the timber of his steady voice, even those goddamn cable jumpers. The cool head in the face of fear and the infectious giggles in the face of danger.

He knows it won’t actually ever be everything, but.

It will have to be enough.

Enough for the terrors to come. He knows there will be many.

Too many, perhaps; more than any human could possibly bear. More than is sane to bear. Maybe even too much.

 _But it's John Watson,_ he thinks. _It will have to be enough._

John will always be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick but loving shout out to everyone who responded warmly to this on Twitter (this includes all the hate, haha), and sent me encouraging thoughts about my writing -- I probably never would have done this if it weren't for you. Love you all a lot :)


End file.
